#alsosparticus

   She found him sitting there on his bed, clothes still unchanged from three days before, when Donna had been captured and interrogated violently by some extraterrestrial evil, with the villains spouting out the most awful, horrible things about her—which she’d begun to believe. Or, more appropriately, believed in more. Like many, those thoughts always gnawed at the back of her mind, sometimes manifesting after messing something up, or making a mistake.

   But, unlike normal, when she would’ve been able to fight that negativity with her knowing how it was all preposterous, the insults and abuse had taken its toll. All that had swirled through her mind for that day she’d gone missing was how useless she was, and how her friend didn’t think she mattered enough to be saved. No one loved a pathetic, useless waste of space like her.

   Little did they know that Ten was on his way, vengeance in hand.

   But, for the most part, she’d been in the dark. During the ordeal, Donna had been injured emotionally, slapped around the entire time with daggers of words—sharp, piercing insults, and poisonous promises of a desolate destiny. Even with her sassy zingers and stubbornness, they had begun to get to her. Her being thrown into an interrogation cell wasn’t what hurt; it was those feelings, those awful feelings that these villains had unearthed, the same feelings that her mum would cause every once in a while. They surrounded her, like an emotional undertow, dragging her deeper and deeper until she was a hair’s distance away from losing hope.

   Of course, she didn’t let them win. Even if she was aching, she knew, deep down, that her friend would help her out, and no matter what, he knew that she’d help him, too. The problem was, it had taken quite the amount of time. If she had been there for much longer, they had planned on killing her, and Donna wasn’t going to go out without a fight. She’d begun to prepare to distract them long enough to let The Doctor know where she was, hoping she wouldn’t have to enact her plan: Try to fight back. This failed miserably.

   Physical injuries followed. Nothing too major; just being pushed around, thrown against a wall. The usual torture tactics. Minutes later, when the Doctor had entered the room she was being kept in, the adversaries, seeing the Time Lord, had hastily attempted to knock Donna unconscious. While the attempt failed, it had still hurt.

   Seeing this, Ten was disgusted. In an effort to not become livid, The Doctor offered them a chance to make up for everything. To help his dear friend. To rescind their cruelty. They were better than that, he thought, and worth giving a chance. In reply, the villains threw Donna Noble against an alien torture device, which used electric shock in a whip-like form to cause her wounds. After all, villain’s interrogation room wasn’t complete without a torture device. Her arm was gashed gruesomely as the impact knocked her over, injuring her. She’d begun to bleed out from the impact.

   That was the last straw for The Doctor.

   Finding his friend in such a state (though, thankfully, with that characteristic fight still coursing through her veins), especially after he’d offered to help the captors, The Doctor had lost control. After all, he wasn’t really a man for second chances, in a situation like that. He had gotten violent; a testament to the brutality of the adversaries’ actions. If The Doctor had snapped, especially to such a degree, then the situation was clearly very, very bad.

   Besides thinking this, the last thing Donna remembered was seeing her captors begging for mercy at the hands of her friend, one bleeding violet and the other very clearly knocked unconscious with a single, deft move, strewn against the ground like a lavender-skinned rag-doll, the remains of this assault coating Ten’s suit-arm and his hands. Amid the cries for forgiveness and labored breathing of the ringleader who, moments before, had been the one to throw Donna against a table, she heard Ten’s voice come out as a growl, snarling some kind of scalding words before picking up the remaining villain by the lapel, and—

   That was all.

   She reminisced about it on her walk over to The Doctor’s room. That kind of behavior wasn’t necessarily uncommon for him—the skirmish and justice parts, she noted, not the drastic violence. From there, her train of thought swiftly moved from replaying the encounter to pondering the reason for the surprising lack of Doctor for the past day or so. The last time Donna had been injured on an adventure, The Doctor didn’t leave her alone, hovering over her like a concerned parent whose child was constantly holding a fork in the general vicinity of an electrical outlet.

   Considering that he’d gotten a bit of blood on himself during that traumatic debacle, Donna thought that he would’ve disposed of the encounter’s remains as quickly as he could have. She assumed that he had. At least, after he’d been Doctoring to the best of his ability, trying to get his friend to heal.

   With the human in bed for two days after that, The Doctor hadn’t left her side, save for supply-gathering and nourishment—all for her. Never for him. He seemed far too worried to eat, even if Donna was healing well, albeit being in a dreamlike state from the medication he’d given her, never fully realizing what was going on as she ebbed in and out of awareness. Within these delusions, she registered some kindnesses, a bad joke or two, but most of all, knew that her Gallifreyan friend would be there.

   Until she’d woken up fully, on the second day of recovery. Alone.

   She assumed that he’d just went back to his room to rest or something, unfazed and unaffected. After all, The Doctor saw stuff like what had happened on a daily basis, right? Anyway, Donna was doing all right. Besides being slightly shaken by that traumatic episode, she was better than she’d been, as she knew that her friend was able to save her life, and that he’d taken good care of her, as par the course. With his care, the pain in her arm had gone from sharp and unbearable to dulled and, frankly, nagging. But, at least it wasn’t what it’d been beforehand. The only thing she’d really been annoyed about was the fact that the only trace of The Doctor in that healing room upon her awaking was a glass of water with a note in chicken scratch reading something to the effect of, “Not dead yet! Yay! Stay hydrated! Helps with pain. Be back soon. –Spaceman”.

   He hadn’t come back. A day or so from that solitary awakening, and there they were, Donna leaning against the doorway, tea tray in hand, while The Doctor brooded in that blood-spattered suit of his. He hadn’t even seen her walk in. Or, at the very least, didn’t acknowledge it.

   “Spaceman?”

   He perked up immediately at her presence, eyes wide, as if he’d seen a ghost. Ten genuinely hadn’t noticed. “—Oh! Oh, Donna. Hi.” His tone was curt, quick, and a tad rusted. It sounded as if he hadn’t used his voice in a while. “Feeling better?”

   “I am,” She replied, noting the change in his demeanor. “Well—I was, at least. ‘til I woke up, and a certain Twig wasn’t there. I find a bunch ‘a bandages on me, and the bloke that I’d assumed put them on was missing. So, you can say that I wasn’t exactly chuffed. C’mon. You’re a Doctor. I expect top-notch service, yeah?”

   Her tone was joking, but he didn’t smile. After a silence, he looked down at his hands and at his purple-flecked sleeves, averting her eyes. “…I’m sorry.”

   “Hey—I’m just joshin’! Don’t be sorry. You saved my life, Doctor. You’re a good friend. Better than that, really—I’d say that you’re a fantastic friend.”

   Ten didn’t reply.

   “…Doctor,” Donna inquired softly, moving to the nearby side table to set down her tea, “What’s wrong? You—“ She took a spot beside him on his bed, gesturing to his suit. “You look like you’ve been through a blender. You haven’t changed since you tried to fix me up in the infirmary, ‘ave you?”

   “So, Donna. What do you think about a film tonight? I’d love t’ watch somethin’—“

   “Doctor,” She reiterated, cutting off her friend with worry tinging her words, “Are you all right?”

   He replied before she could even finish her question. “—I’m fine. Just fine. Always fine.” A dodge. “Donna, ‘re you all right?”

   “I’m all right, I’m all right,” she responded, waving off his question with her hand. “But, Doctor, honestly, I’d feel far better if you told me what the hell’s making you upset.”

   “I’m not upset.”

   “Yeah, an’ I’m not ginger. That’s a load of bullocks and you know it, Space Brain,” She hissed, a spark of concerned fury beginning to light within her. “Doctor, don’t patronize me. I’m not stupid. Not daft. Well—I am, but I’m at least smart enough to figure out when my friend is sad. Which is obvious, even if he doesn’t want to admit it to his fashionable, redheaded human friend.”

   The Doctor sat there quietly. He seemed taken aback at her words, only making eye contact with her after a pause. With an earnest, sad look in his eyes, he whimpered, voice cracking, “…You aren’t stupid.”

   “Oh, c’mon, Doctor, we both know—”

   “Stop it.” Anger tinged his words. Hurt, even. “Donna Noble, don’t you dare say that about yourself. Not on my watch. Don’t—“ Ten groped both for words, and for her shoulders. “Don’t think that you’re stupid, Donna. You’re incredibly brilliant—not as brilliant as me, of course, but who is?”

   An awkward pause made him realize: “—Wow. Sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it.” He shook his head, cheeks tinged with an orange-red blush of embarrassment.

   He continued after a quick head shake, his hazel eyes connecting with her gaze and reflecting his heartfelt words. “Anyway—Donna, you’re a genius. An’, you’re a good person, to boot. A far better person than I’ll ever be.”

   It took Donna a moment to register his words, but when she did, her eyebrows furrowed, and she nudged his hold off of her shoulders. She ignored his kind insistence of her intelligence, only thinking about—and really getting—a small part of what he’d said. “Now, hold on a tick.” It was her turn to be angry. “Did you just say that you’re a bad person?”

   Silence. Biting his lip, Ten hesitated for a moment or so before explaining his rationale to Donna, with an ache marking his words. “…Well, I’m most certainly not a good one. You know who I am, Donna. Know how I am. Hell, you—you watched me hurt someone. I’ve got the bloodstains t’ prove it. Literal bloodstains. Look ’t ‘em. Right there. They’re right there. Look!”

   He snatched his sleeve, pulling emphatically on it with his free hand. Changing his gesture to pointing to the purple spatter that tinged the stripes and stitching as he waved it in front of her soon after, it was very evident that he was most certainly out-of-sorts. By this point, the suit-sleeve had been irrevocably stained violet from the earlier violence, especially considering that the blood was very much dried by this point. Normally, that damage to a perfectly good suit would have mortified him, but at that moment, he was more terrified of himself, of that raging anger that smoldered inside his hearts.

   To prove his point, as he was about to continue, The Doctor grabbed Donna’s arms for emphasis, as he was apt to do, forgetting that one of them was bandaged. Her cry of pain (punctuated by some expletives) echoed through his room, amplifying his already-suffocating guilt.

   “—Donna! Oh, I’m—I’m sorry, I’m—are you all right—?”

   “Y-yeah. I’m—it’s nothin’.” She fibbed through a wince and gritted teeth. “Just—just get on with it, mate.”

   “See? That’s what I mean. I didn’t even mean t’ hurt you, but I did. I don’t mean to have people die, or be killed, but since they knew me, since they talked to me, since they were in the same area as me, they die, Donna. They get hurt. They get killed. I couldn’t bear the same happenin’ to you. I mean, that’s almost what happened back there! Those purple blokes—they were gonna kill you! They hurt you! An’—and I--!”

   Ten shook his head. “I was angry. So consumed by rage, that I lost myself. I—I wanted to hurt them. Wanted t’ kill them. ‘specially after they did what they did t’ you. Believe me, they weren’t leaving that behind unscathed. But… Still, I’m—I’m scared.” Ten gulped. “I just wanted to protect you, to give ‘em the justice they deserved, but I—I almost killed them, Donna!“ Ten inhaled sharply to save his quaking breath.

   “I’m so scared of myself.”

   Donna’s eyes were heavy with pain and unbridled sympathy. After a quiet came over the room, she placed a kind hand on his shoulder. That tremulous tone—oh, she knew he was on the verge of tears. Thankfully, he was able to go on, recollecting his composure without a single semblance of that emotion trickling down his cheeks.

   “I’m a monster, Donna. You know it. You’ve seen me. You—you deserve better. You deserve a better friend than me.” Averting his gaze from her and turning away, The Doctor confessed, “I don’t deserve a friend like you. Never did. And, after what I’ve done, both a couple days ago and even many, many years ago, I never will. I—I don’t want t’ hurt you.”

   At that, Donna started scolding him with a maternal fervor. “Oi! Don’t you go wallowing in self-pity, Space-Twit.” Fuming, she grabbed his hand, looking into his eyes with an icy blue glare. Even if the look was only returned in petrified, wide-eyed shock on Ten’s end, it was very clear—she was pouring her heart out before him as sympathy leaked from every word.

   “—Now, you listen t’ me. It’s fine to not like yourself, from time to time. Hell, I don’t like myself, sometimes. When those bad guys were tauntin’ me, and hit me against their shocky-torture—thing, and I was about to pass out watchin’ you, I hated myself more than I had in a long, long time. It hurt. But, seein’ you there, bursting into that room right before I was thrown around… It gave me hope.”

   Sentiment dripped from her voice. “Doctor, like yourself or not, you saved my life. My life, Doctor. And the lives of billions more. Now, I dunno what your definition of ‘bad’ is, but I don’t think that ‘being selfless and kind and sacrificing yourself to save others’ is under that definition.”

   “But, you saw me, Donna. I hurt them. I—I lost control.” His worst nightmare, realized. After all, she knew that. She knew how much the idea spooked him. “It’s not the first time, an’ it certainly won’t be the last.”

   “Yes, you did lose control. You were furious, and it was terrifying.” A bit of residual fear marked her tone. “I heard them beg for mercy before I passed out. There was purple everywhere, and they were still taunting me, even with me bein’ almost knocked unconscious, an’ you about to knock them unconscious, and—“ Donna gulped. “—And I was scared of you, Doctor. You were monstrous. Beastly, even.”

   She looked him in the eyes. “But, they were gonna kill me. If you hadn’t hurt them, or had gotten there any later, I’d be nothing more than an ash-filled urn atop a mantle, or a pile ‘a bones in a grave that my gramps and my mum shouldn’t ever have to visit. Given the alternatives, I think you’ve got the moral high ground.”

   As he was about to open his mouth and protest, she cut him off, tone soft. “Doctor, listen to yourself. Someone who would hurt me—at least, on purpose—wouldn’t have this kind of reaction to even the thought of it. It takes a special kind of person to do what you do, and even then, Doctor, I know you’d trust me with my life, an’ I’d trust you with mine.”

   Tenderness filled her voice. “Now, look ’t you. Guilting yourself over a crime you haven’t even fathomed committing—a crime you only fear you’ll commit.” She placed her hand in his, which had begun to shake. Once she’d turned it around, her thumb rubbed circles into his palm, and she could feel him relax, at least a small bit. “The fact that you’re tellin’ me this shows me that you’d never hurt me—at least, not on purpose.” Her eyes glistened with belief, the most sincere belief in her dear friend.

   “Don’t you dare think for one moment that you’re ‘bad’. I know ‘bad’. I’ve dated ‘bad’. I’ve fought ‘bad’. I was almost killed a couple a’ days ago by ‘bad’. You are not bad.” Her free hand laid atop her grasp, patting his hand lightly in the process. “You are good, Doctor. Or, at the very least, have good within you. There’s good an’ bad in everyone out there. Me included. I’m no saint, y’know.”

   “Oh, I do,” Ten cringed, remembering that fateful Christmas day when they’d first met. Blimey, she could shout. She also had quite the vocabulary, no matter how much the TARDIS filtered it. That hadn’t changed. Saint, her arse.

   “Oi.” She snarled, “I’m tryin’ t’ comfort you, Martian Boy. Don’t get smart with me.”

   “Sorry.”

   “Yeah. You’d better be.” After pouting with a bit of humor, she quickly sobered, and got back to her speech. “Anyway. Don’t you dare think that you don’t deserve good things. If anything, you deserve nothin’ but them. You’ve seen hell. You’ve done things I can’t believe someone could’ve done—for better or for worse. You’re a stranger, a mysterious, terrifying stranger­ sometimes, but you… You’re so kind. But, you need to be kinder to yourself.” Her hand moved to his shoulder. “—‘Cause if you won’t, then I will.”

   “As long as you’re kinder to yourself, Earthgirl.”

   Halting for a moment, Donna said slowly, “…I don’t need kindness. You do.”

   “We’ve all got t’ start somewhere. For starters…” Ten leaned in towards her. He took her hand from his shoulder, placing it in his grasp as well. “Lemme let you in on a secret,” Ten began. “An old man’s secret. Well, an old man’s secret about you.”

   He gestured for her to come nearer. Donna complied, with a confused look flashed his way. Ten whispered into her ear, “I know it’s hard t’ believe for you, but contrary to what those extraterrestrial rubbish bins pounded into your head, or what your mum says, you aren’t a waste of space.”

   After a moment without a response on Donna’s end, Ten held his head to the side, noting his friend’s silence. He scooted further away from her and let go of her hand as he examined the human with confusion. He’d expected a smile! A joke, maybe. Possibly even some affectionate cursing. But, not… This.

   “Erm, I--I’m sorry, Donna. Was I rude? I didn’t say something awful again, did I? Too personal?”

   She shook her head, biting her lip. Ten noticed that there was some extra moisture in her eyes: Had he made her cry? Eyebrows furrowed, he moved centimeter or so closer, a stray tear trailing down her cheek catching his eye.

   The Doctor had made her cry. His hearts ached with a pang of sorrow. He most certainly had. While the tears were minimal—nothing like some of the emotional exchanges from “talking stick” nights—he still felt absolutely atrocious.

   “Oh, blimey. I—wow. I am an arse, aren’t I? Wow. I am so sorry, Donna, I really am.“

As he spoke, The Doctor wiped some of the tears from her cheek with one of his fingers, self-loathing swelling within him and mingling with the concern that had begun to course through him. Some friend he was. She’d come into the room to comfort him, and now she was the one who’d become sad. He had to make it up to her.

   Cupping her cheek in his hand, he moved the red bangs out of the way, and lightly kissed her forehead, finishing with a sincere look. “Still, believe me, Donna Noble, you’re incredible. You’re brilliant, intelligent, an’ all in all, your mum—she’s wrong. I’ve heard her talk t’ you. She’s awful. Sometimes, I just wanna give her a nice, long, talking-to. An’ if she dares say that kind of rubbish t’ you on my watch—!“

   Before he could continue, she threw his hand off of her face and cut him off with a hug, clutching his bony form as if he were a buoy on a stormy sea. Once they’d sat there for a few moments in silence, he could feel her tremble. His sleeves, still speckled with the remnants of his rage in the form of dried alien blood, wrapped around her, holding her as safe and tight as he could manage, cradling that spectacular friend in his own quivering arms.

   It was quite the picture, really. A bloodstained monster of a man gingerly reassuring and holding a friend tight, that oh-so-strong friend of his, who never dared admit to herself that she mattered, and had been told the opposite enough times that she’d begun to believe it. Maybe if he insisted to her that she was important and she insisted to him that he was good, then they’d begin to believe each other.  While they both didn’t realize it—at least, consciously—shockingly enough, they had begun to believe it. Still, the one thing they did know was that, unequivocally, Donna and The Doctor made each other better. And wasn’t that what friends did? Or—family?

   “You say I’m good,” he murmured with that sentiment in mind, patting his friend’s back, “but really, you’ve got t’ give yourself more credit, Earthgirl. ‘Cause when you don’t, when you’re sad, like right now…” A sigh. “Oh, it breaks my hearts. Really does.”

   She went motionless at those words, taking in a few breaths. The shaking stopped, and the sniffling. Donna waited to collect herself enough to speak coherently before peeling away from the hug to give him a puzzled look. In-between sniffles and with tears still racing down her cheeks, she managed, “—Doctor, I’m not s-sad. I mean, I’m sad that you were sad, yeah, but—I’m just moved, is all. There’s a difference.”

   “…Oh.” He chuckled awkwardly. “Erm… I didn’t need t’ do all ‘a that, did I?”

   “No, you dunderhead,” She laughed as she shook her head. “I said you weren’t upsettin’ me with that comment. That’s what a head-shakin’ means. I just—I can’t believe that that made me cry!” Another laugh. “Hell, I feel like that’s a trait of yours. You’re catching, Doctor. I’m becoming overly teary. Like you. And, now, look where we are!”

   Donna chuckled a bit more as she wiped at her eyes. “You are an arse sometimes, yeah, but this isn’t one of those times. You—you just—you say things sometimes, Doctor, that leave a spot on people’s hearts, for better or for worse.  This case, for the better. I’ve—I’ve just never had anyone say that t’ me before, besides Gramps. Bless him. I guess that’s just something granddads all have in common, isn’t it?”

  It was her turn to peck his forehead. “Still, it was very kind of you, along with everything else you said.” With a point to his hearts and a light jab on his chest at their direction, she smiled. “I’ll try t’ keep it in mind, you big goof. As long as you keep what I said in mind, all right?”

   Ten jokingly groaned. “Fine, fine. I will. Blimey, you’re actin’ like my mum.”

   “At this point, I basically am your mum, an’ you know it. Once you stop gettin’ into idiotic situations, then we’ll talk.”

   “Can’t promise that,” Ten replied.

   Another smile from Donna. “—Good. ‘Cause, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

   He grinned in reply. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, either.”

   She gave him her hand silently, squeezing it in confirmation of his words. After a squeeze in return, The Doctor remembered: “Oh! The tea!”

   “It’s cold by now,” the Noble woman shrugged, “but if you’d like…”

   “Donna, you do realize that you managed to grab the ‘Ever-Warming’ tea set, right? It’s only warm now, instead of scalding.”

   The ginger stood there for about ten seconds, the gears turning in her head. Deciding against feigning knowledge about her chance choice of tea set, she beamed, clearly delighted. “Oh! Brilliant!” She handed him a cup of tea, along with the tray, milk, and sugar.

   Taking his tea to his liking, he then took a sip, nodding lightly. “Oh, an’—Donna. Really, though, ‘re you all right? Doin’ better? I’m sorry, ‘bout leavin’ you in the infirmary like that. I shouldn’t’ve done that, ‘specially not after an ordeal like that one.”

   “It’s all right. But, yeah, you should’t’ve. Don’t do that to me again.” She waggled her finger at him between another sip, muttering something under her breath about how she deserved better than a hastily scrawled note on a glass of water, especially when her arm was aching like someone had gashed it open. Which they had, she pointed out.

   “Still…” Her features softened. “Yeah, I’m doin’ better. You?”

   The brunet nodded, honesty gilding his words. “Well, I mean, I still feel awful for what happened, but… Yeah. I’d say that I am doin’ a tad better. ‘specially since I’ve got a brilliant best friend t’ cheer me up.”

   She scooted closer to him, her shoulder soon touching his as he sat beside her. “Thank you, Doctor.”

   “Thank you, Donna,” Ten said with a warmness to rival his tea, which still had wisps of ethereal steam gliding over its top. Finishing off the drink, he placed the cup and saucer on the side table nearby, following suit with Donna’s dishes after she’d finished hers. He took her hand. She leaned on him, using his shoulder as a headrest.

   “Y’know, Spaceman, I’d say that we’re pretty lucky, aren’t we? Lucky I’m not dead, lucky our tea was warm—“

   “Lucky you’ve got good taste in films, lucky you keep me from bein’ too much of an arse, lucky we met—“ The Doctor, resting his head atop hers, gestured in the affirmative.

   “Oh! Of course! How could I forget meeting my best mate? I’d rather die than forget you. I could never forget a friend like you, Doctor,” Donna insisted, squeezing Ten’s hand.

   “I’d sincerely hope so. After all, I’ll never forget meetin’ you! ‘specially not with the entrance you made! But, anyway—lucky to have each other as friends,” the Time Lord agreed. “The best of best friends. Bestest friends, so to speak.”

   “What? ‘Bestest’? C’mon, Doctor, that’s not even a proper word!” A chuckle.

   “Oh, believe me, Donna, it is, just informal and not necessarily grammatically correct. But, for describing our friendship, I think we can make an exception, yeah?” He couldn’t help but begin to laugh himself. ”But—let’s see. Ooh! How ‘bout this. Lucky that we’re family, really.”

   He felt her nod against his shoulder. “Yeah. Family,” Donna said fondly. That word laid on the air, appropriately echoing the feeling that warmed up their hearts. “I’d say, all in all, Spaceman, we’re pretty lucky, aren’t we?”